At least three Ukrainian civilians were killed and 23 others wounded by Russian shelling in 24 hours, including an attack not far from a Russian-occupied nuclear power plant, the office of Ukraine’s president reported on Tuesday.
The Russians fired over 120 rockets from Grad multiple rocket launchers at the southern town of Nikopol, which is across the Dnieper River from the Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant, Dnipropetrovsk governor Valentyn Reznichenko said. Several apartment buildings and industrial facilities were damaged, he added.
Ukraine and Russia accused each other in recent days of shelling the nuclear plant, which is the largest one in Europe, and increasing the risks of a nuclear accident.
In his nightly video address on Monday, Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskiy invoked the 1986 disaster at the Chernobyl nuclear plant in Ukraine, which at the time was a Soviet republic. He called for new sanctions against Russia “for creating the threat” of another nuclear disaster.
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“We are actively informing the world about Russian nuclear blackmail – about the shelling and mining of the Zaporizhzhia NPP facilities,” Mr Zelensky said. “Russia will not pay attention to words and concerns … The Chernobyl disaster is an explosion in one reactor; the Zaporizhzhia NPP is six power units.”
The Kremlin claimed on Monday that Ukraine’s military was attacking the plant and urged Western powers to force Kyiv to stop the activity.
A Russian-installed official in the partially occupied Zaporizhzhia region said an air defence system at the plant would be reinforced in the aftermath of last week’s shelling.
Evgeny Balitsky, the head of the Kremlin-backed administration, told Russian state TV on Tuesday that power lines and damaged blocks of the plant had been restored. “The plant is operating normally, but, of course, with an increased degree of security,” Mr Balitsky said.
A Ukrainian counteroffensive and Russian defensive actions in occupied areas have increasingly drawn firepower to southern Ukraine. Drones are playing a crucial role in Ukraine’s military operations in the southern Mykolaiv region where Russian shelling has been escalating in recent weeks.
The leader of a Ukrainian reconnaissance team named “Fireflies” – who goes by the nom de guerre “Baton” – said his unit was using drones to monitor and combat any Russian attempt to seize more territory in the region.
“This is a war of artillery and drones,” Baton told reporters, as he observed smoke rising after an attack on a Russian position a few kilometres away on a monitor with the feed sent from the vehicle. Drones were the only “eyes”, Baton said.
After failing to capture Ukraine’s capital, Kyiv, early in the war, the Russian military focused its strength on trying to seize all of the country’s eastern Donbas region. Pro-Moscow separatists have fought Ukrainian forces in the region for eight years and control some territory as self-proclaimed republics.
Britain’s Ministry of Defence said on Tuesday that Russian forces had made the most progress in the past month in moving toward the town of Bakhmut – an advance limited to about 10km. “In other Donbas sectors where Russia was attempting to break through, its forces have not gained more than 3km during this 30-day period; almost certainly significantly less than planned,” the MoD said.
However, the ministry cautioned that despite the attention required in southern Ukraine, Russia had maintained attacks on Ukrainian positions in the east.
The governor of eastern Ukraine’s Donetsk province, Pavlo Kyrylenko, said the Russians were trying to press their offensive in several areas.
Kharkiv, the country’s second-largest city, came under Russian shelling four times over 24 hours, and some city infrastructure was damaged. – AP